I signed up for the beta a while back, and they never sent me an email saying i had gotten in. Went to the site and logged in just for hell's sake and, what do you know, it said i was "invited". Downloading now, i'll post my thoughts later.

I got invited to beta as well, but with me back playing wow I didn't accept it. Please post your thoughts on it compared to the other big mmo's out. Whats the price point? Post us some screenies. I want to see the interface.

played it today. Not bad as long as its free cause if not i can just play RoM. same thing different name.

I believe their FAQ says it will have a subscription on release.

As for the game itself, it was definitely interesting, with the multiclass system (you get up to 3 subclasses of your main class, and can mix and match skills from all 3 to customize your class in a way), but the multiclass system seemed kind of repetitive. The first class combination I made, I started with blade dancer, then went riftstalker or whatever, and it seemed like the skills were identical almost. They had different damage types, but they did virtually the same damage and worked in the same way. Then I went Ranger Bard after that which was pretty cool, slow damage but at a certain point your main damage skill heals you while it does damage, so you essentially kill slower than the more direct damage classes, but you constantly heal yourself while killing. You also get a pet due to the Ranger class which can tank an additional mob long enough for you to kill the one attacking you then kill the mob attacking your pet.

It was a fun game, more polished than most beta's, but I think the multiclass system is a little too complex with some combinations being pretty crappy, and generally not worth the subscription that will come later (though IMHO no MMO is worth a subscription, not even WoW).

How does it play in the idea of instancing, is it like Guild Wars where the towns are grouped however, the world is an instance or is it open world like WoW?

It's like WoW, world is open (which was annoying as hell in the Beta because the lower level zones were overcrowded and everyone was fighting over spawns), with instanced zones that I assume work similar to raids (only one was available when I played the beta and I didn't nolife the game to get to it).

oh that reminds me a friend said there's a 3 hour raid instance at level 20. sounds absolutely retarded to me, but he he championed how good it was because he got 2 levels in it and "raiding isn't just an endgame activity" in rift. idk personally i can't sit still for 3 hours straight without going afk for a few minutes and especially at level 20.

people seem to think based on beta that leveling will be fast. i'm not sure what the level cap is but in my experience leveling slows down after beta caps.

the rifts sound kinda cool but also kind of annoying. basically a rift spawns and mobs run out and if players don't fight them they spread to quests hubs and kill all your quest givers. and if players continue to ignore them they spread to the towns and kill everything there too. players are supposed to group up to beat them but if they don't there are npc's you can hire to help you fight them solo.

oh that reminds me a friend said there's a 3 hour raid instance at level 20. sounds absolutely retarded to me, but he he championed how good it was because he got 2 levels in it and "raiding isn't just an endgame activity" in rift. idk personally i can't sit still for 3 hours straight without going afk for a few minutes and especially at level 20.

people seem to think based on beta that leveling will be fast. i'm not sure what the level cap is but in my experience leveling slows down after beta caps.

the rifts sound kinda cool but also kind of annoying. basically a rift spawns and mobs run out and if players don't fight them they spread to quests hubs and kill all your quest givers. and if players continue to ignore them they spread to the towns and kill everything there too. players are supposed to group up to beat them but if they don't there are npc's you can hire to help you fight them solo.

I never made it to the raid, but 3 hours is a long time for a level 20 raid, perhaps it simply doesn't feel like an "endgame activity" in the beta because he knows it's only a beta and what he was playing was only the endgame for the beta? Basically he played one of the highest level areas in the beta and he presumes raiding won't be an endgame activity because of how populated that raid area was due to it being towards the end of the beta?

I don't think leveling will slow much, but I know the cap will go up. I want to say up to around level 50 or 70 or something but that could be a number I am thinking from a different game. Pretty sure something about the cap was talked about in their FAQ or forums or somewhere though.

Rifts were kinda stupid during the beta, any time a rift opened up you had like 10+ people in the area that swarmed to it. Even without being in a party the players generally outnumbered the monsters 2:1 so the rifts always closed quickly. There was a point during the first beta where there was talk of a rift taking over a town, but I didn't make it that far into the game.

I never made it to the raid, but 3 hours is a long time for a level 20 raid, perhaps it simply doesn't feel like an "endgame activity" in the beta because he knows it's only a beta and what he was playing was only the endgame for the beta? Basically he played one of the highest level areas in the beta and he presumes raiding won't be an endgame activity because of how populated that raid area was due to it being towards the end of the beta?

I don't think leveling will slow much, but I know the cap will go up. I want to say up to around level 50 or 70 or something but that could be a number I am thinking from a different game. Pretty sure something about the cap was talked about in their FAQ or forums or somewhere though.

Rifts were kinda stupid during the beta, any time a rift opened up you had like 10+ people in the area that swarmed to it. Even without being in a party the players generally outnumbered the monsters 2:1 so the rifts always closed quickly. There was a point during the first beta where there was talk of a rift taking over a town, but I didn't make it that far into the game.

the guy who said the thing about the raids at level 20... idk i can't trust his opinion sometimes. he said STO beta was bad and then bought an LTS for it and CO, and mostly just played dress up in STO.

idk, people ALWAYS says x mmo has fast leveling in beta based on how fast the early levels go, and almost every single mmo goes live and the cap lifted and as soon as people get past the beta cap they start moaning about how grindy it is and how much it slows down. that being said there4 are always the .5% of players who grind out to max level in 2 weeks after launch no matter how grindy it is.

that's interesting and seems to contradict whtat the guy said about his beta experience with the rifts. but that's the guy who talk about level 20 raids too.

most of what i'm going by here is second hand information, unfortunately. i had a beta key and keep getting invite emails for it, but the beta was timed to coincide with cata launch, which i can help but feel is a stupid move on teh part of the devs. they could've moved it one month forward or back and had so much better timing instead of trying to go head to head for player interest with the 2000 lb elephant in the room.

idk, people ALWAYS says x mmo has fast leveling in beta based on how fast the early levels go, and almost every single mmo goes live and the cap lifted and as soon as people get past the beta cap they start moaning about how grindy it is and how much it slows down. that being said there4 are always the .5% of players who grind out to max level in 2 weeks after launch no matter how grindy it is.

Yeah, most MMOs generally have an experience curve where the higher level you get the slower you level. I suppose it is no different in Rift, it's just that the beta cap is low enough you don't feel that much of a slowdown.

that's interesting and seems to contradict whtat the guy said about his beta experience with the rifts. but that's the guy who talk about level 20 raids too.

I never made it past level 12 or so because I kept making different characters to try out different class combinations, but every rift I was in had at least 10+ people killing stuff in the rift, these were also areas though where there were generally 20+ people you could see from any specific spot on the map and you had to fight over respawning mobs. The higher level areas probably were much more barren and rifts were probably more troublesome. The rifts are a great idea, and I like the way the landscape changes when they appear, but in the beta at least they were super easy to destroy and really weren't much fun.